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OpenOffice Vs. Google Apps
jammag writes "Both OpenOffice and Google Apps are free, so the choice is purely down to which is better. Bruce Byfield, after looking at both, concluded, 'comparing Google Apps to OpenOffice.org is like clubbing a staked-out bunny — Google Apps is so far behind that the whole exercise seems like an exercise in pointless cruelty.' Ouch, that hurts."
Google Apps gives me what I want: A browser-based place to write stuff and make spreadsheets and store the documents where I can access them whenever I like.
Thus, Google Apps is fine for me.
After all, they are still in Beta. :)
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
I use OpenOffice at home for documents I want to keep secure (for the most part, I detest cloud computing) but for documents that can be out in the open, I prefer GoogleDocs simply because I can access them from any computer available to me and make a quick change.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Google Apps are a new paradigm in software, having commonly used applications entirely on a server so that multiple users can use them. I think we'll see this on par with Open Office when it becomes more popular.
Those poor bastards, they have us surrounded. Now we can fire at them in all directions!
I eagerly followed the link in summary hoping to see some good bunny staking pictures or even bunnies clubbing a steak (for tenderness?), but NOOOO, I get some article about Google and OpenOffice. Seriously, who came up with the term "clubbing a staked-out bunny"? Who EVER says that?
Is this a reference to some Simpson's episode (w. Natalie Portman doing voice overs) that I missed?
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
Does anyone expect a web app to come close to a heavy hitter like Open Office? It serves a different purpose; it will edit documents from any decent web browser at any location. The computer doesn't need access to my files as long as Google has them and it doesn't need any special software, either.
Google docs isn't special because it's a great office suite; it's special because it's convenient.
Is there something wrong with using both? If I have net connection, it's Google. If I'm offline, it's OpenOffice.
Open Office kicks seven kinds of Hell out of Google Apps in terms of functionality. Google docs offers online sharing of documents / collaborative working. You know what Open Office is doing with your data (f' all) and you don't know what Google is doing with it. Choose a product according to your requirements. Simple enough.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Because that's what it is, right ?
A locall?y running suite to an online suite...
I mean, I'm all for opensource and stuff, but this...
Let's compare my wallet to my bankaccount...
Wallet wins hands down because I can pay a cabfare with it...
I will work to elevate you, just enough to bring you down
Well, also, I use a translation suite (Heartsome) that can't deal with any online docs. The document has to be reformatted to XLF format for use in the suite. Once complete, I convert it back to either ODF or doc format, and then I suppose I could use GDocs as storage. But there are a million online storage options out there now, some offering dav access.
Apples and Oranges, people...
GoogleDocs, for example, is merely a quick, easily accessible and SHARABLE online tool.
OpenOffice is a full suite of office software with an actual footprint on a single existing computer.
Not even worth comparing at this point. Not until we get more into a blur of web-based software and installed software.
While we're on car analogies, I like to think about it as using one's own vehicle(OO) vs. using public transportation(Docs).
This is one of those articles that probably started out as an interesting idea, but then immediately was like 'oh, a bit of a waste of time'. I suppose the idea is that they are both popular and free to use, and thus was born the idea.
As everyone has (and will) pointed out, they serve different purposes. It's like comparing the OS on my phone to the OS on my laptop, and then saying 'wow, you can do so much more with the laptop OS'. Duh, mofo.. shortage of article ideas this month?
And don't mean to sound so harsh, just too much coffee I'm thinking.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
-when we'll be comparing novels to text messaging.
sudo ergo sum
Is it just me or are office apps becoming increasingly unimportant.
Ten years ago I spent most of my computing time in some kind of office app. Now I rarely use them. And I receive fewer office documents via email.
Perhaps the office app is just dying? Are they just transition applications between a paper based office and a paperless one anyway?
Ummm... no. One is free of charge only, the other is both free of charge and free as in freedom. One stores your data on computers you have no control over and leaves you at the whim of unexpected feature changes by a publically-traded company whose customers are their advertisers and whose product is your eyeballs; the other leaves you firmly in control over your own data and your own software. These are serious considerations.
I think this says it all.
"But if Stallman's observations aren't enough to stop you from using network apps, a comparison of a leading example like Google Apps with free and open source software (FOSS) such as OpenOffice.org should be."
I really like OpenOffice. Version 3 is very good but this is clearly based on an agenda.
Google Docs are.
1. Good enough for most people. Guess what folks if a program does what you need it too any other features are meaningless.
2. Stores your data online. Great for anything that isn't extremely private. Even better because Google will probably do a better job of backing it up than you will.
3. It works most every where. No need to install it or keep it updated.
4. Works with many common file formats just like OO.org.
If you need OO.org than Google docs will not work for you. But then if you need a feature in Microsoft Office that OO.org doesn't support then you need Office.
But for a lot of people Google Docs are great.
But since both are free as in beer. You might as well use both.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I haven't seen anybody hit my own personal reason to use Google's applications: collaborative editing. If I'm working on my own document, I want it right here under my control, so I'll use OpenOffice. (Actually, I'm more likely to use vi and latex.) But if I'm working with someone, who may not even be in the same country as I am, I'm going to go to Google. My alternatives are to email copies back and forth and manually deal with merges, or to set up a revision control repository of whatever flavor I like. That's more of a pain in my work day than I like.
This also isn't something where OpenOffice can improve. It requires having the infrastructure in place to conveniently share documents, and that's just not part of the OO paradigm. Sure, a repository makes it possible, but I don't want to run a repo, I want to work on documents! Google can do it "out of the box."
--Somebody infect me with a
What a lame comparison. Open Office is a huge (as in bloated) and slow software suite that makes me cry when I have to use it for something serious. I prefer to use Koffice even though it lacks some features I'd like. The fact that using MS Excel on a VM on my linux machine is several orders more productive than running OO natively, should be a good indication. Notice I did not mention MS Word and "productive" in the same sentence, for Word processing I resort to Abiword (or Kword if I want more DTP style). /.: PS3 vs MAME, MS Flight Simulator vs Hot air Balloons, Mars Rover vs RAV4.
So, in summary, OO compares (IMO) badly to its real competitors. Google Apps are a whole different paradigm, targeting completely different usage scenarios. It is not either Google or OO (or Koffice etc). You first decide if your needs require web or local applications and then you decide among the available software for the platform. The web apps will probably never have the same feature set as the local apps for probably good reasons.
Lame, lame article.
Next week on
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Computing site shocked to discover that FlickR performs poorly in comparison to photos stored on hard drive. FlickR declared backwards-ass waste of time.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Why spend resources on that when there are far too many other CMS systems out there already.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Given the extremely rudimentary functionality of Google Apps, I can't for the life of me figure out how there's even a discussion around it's potential use in business.
We use it all the time. Not for polished docs we're going to hand off to a client, but certainly for internal stuff. We share out docs with staff so application testers can submit comments, saves us writing a custom app to track change requests. For developing content quickly and gathering input from multiple users, it's really nice.
No, the formatting options may not be particularly deep, but I can dash off a quick letter and it looks fine. And that's particularly helpful when I'm starting it here and finishing at home. Saves me an rsync operation and version problems.
If there are cheaper, easier and more convenient ways to solve these problems I haven't found them. GoogleApps works for us.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
From the article:
Because it's online. I work with people across the country and across the world. For many of these people, attaching a document to an email is asking a lot. Not to mention the version control headaches (documentA.doc, documentA2.doc, etc) that inevitably arise in document-sharing situations. Google Docs stops this kind of suffering. I've used it with technologically illiterate people to great effect.
In a quantitative comparison of features, yeah, OO has more. Clearly. *cough*. I don't think that was ever a question. If you're a power user, or you're trying to write complex documentation or something, then yeah, you probably need OO. But for sharing simple docs across geographically dispersed people, Google Docs wins hands down.
The question isn't proprietary vs FOSS vs web-based vs desktop. It's "what do you want to use it for". A Blackberry isn't a replacement for a laptop, but if all you want is mobile email, it's probably fine.
...for any kind of regulated business unless you plan to do due diligence on the security, confidentiality and availability of data held by Google.
Can you guarantee that Google won't pass your customers' personal data to a backup site that's not in your home country? Can you be certain that no Google admin will pass your confidential downsizing proposals to the media? Does Google offer guarantees that important correspondence is available within the timescales required by a regulator? Does Google guarantee to delete obsolete data in accordance with local data protection laws? Is the answer to these questions supported by an enforceable contract?
Google apps has its place for personal correspondence. But if your using the cloud to store corporate or customer data without answering questions like these, you're professionally negligent.
Google Docs sometimes has a nasty habit of badly formatting tables.
Keitai shosetsu
I'd tried using Google Apps for some stuff in my HOA (Home Owners Association) to make up flyers to hand out and stuff like that. I can tell OpenOffice I want a 50 point font size for a big headline. I can't make a really large font size in Google Apps. Google Apps does not seem to have a WYSIWYG editing environment, so it's hard to tell if I'm fitting into a single page, into a single half-page, or what amount of space it's taking up. I have to keep telling it to "print" which then gives me a pdf dump that I can see in Acrobat to see my real-life formatting. It's a huge pain in the ass.
I ended up typing it up in OpenOffice and then uploading it to Google Apps for access by other HOA board members and shared storage. Weird, as uploading docs, it preserves the large font sizes that it does not allow me to choose during document creation directly on their site. I've ended up considering Google Apps to be an online storage area only, and not as a functional office tool.
And my biggest annoyance is just using the Google Apps tools. The user interface for spreadsheet is extremely different than the user interface for their "word processor". There's really no commonality in the user interface at all between tools. That annoys me. I'd like a little consistency, but Google doesn't seem interested in that at all.
One of these days I'll take some time to check out Adobe's online office tools. They can't be any less useful than Google Apps are.
I created a resume in OpenOffice, and saved it to a USB flash drive. I forgot to export the file to PDF or .doc after saving, and as I don't have a printer at home, I took my thumb drive into the library at my University to print the resume. Unfortunately, the Univ has MS Office on everything, without the necessary plugins to load .odt files, and I can't install anything on the Uni computers.
I then remembered that Google docs lets you upload and open ODF files, so that's what I did. I *was* able to open the resume and print it, but unfortunately Google messed up some of the spacing and margins, so that the resume didn't quite look right when opened in Google. A resume that doesn't look right isn't worth the paper it's printed on, because it will just make potential employers think you're incompetent or just don't care.
Luckily, this was just for a class, and was just the first draft, so it didn't hurt me this time. It'd be great if Google really could flawlessy open ODF docs. Until that time, you're idea of using Open office to create the docs, then store and use it with Google Apps/Google Docs, is a non-starter.
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the power of the collaboration features in Google Apps. I love OpenOffice and I use it for everything that only I need to maintain, but when it comes sharing spreadsheets with friends, teammates, etc. Google Apps is in a totally different league. Try having 3 or 4 people edit the same spreadsheet at the same time on any other platform. To me that is the main reason to consider Google Apps over OpenOffice.
Why bother when you can just use emacs?
LaTeX and subversion
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
Our school has labs. These labs use deep freeze. When the power goes out, students lose data. Sure they can be smart and save their work to the network drive but many don't or forget or were just getting started or couldn't remember their password, or autosave only saves to a network drive after the initial "save as".........
Please spare me your "they ought tos......"* It happens and when it does those who were using google apps, lose little or no data.
Then there is the online collaboration stuff between teachers and staff from different schools who need to work together and whose IT departments don't.
Then there is the storage space that is far greater than any IT department has quota'd(sp?) before so we can share those large image files.
It's not about what OOO does better, which is most everything. It's about what Google apps does that no one else does. The technical superiority of OOO and MS Office are things that can be picked up later as Google improves the product. I for one can't think of anything MSOffice has done to improve my Word or Excel functionality since Office 95 so the gap on useful features is closing fast.
*unless you can tell me how to get autosave to save to a network drive if you haven't saved your work initially in Vista
That's right... I'm surprised that no one has referred to it.
If the convenience, simplicity, and collaboration features of Google Docs were not enough, there's also something for those too afraid to be caught in a google-down situation ("OMG, but I need that sheet/doc/presentation NOW...")
Google Docs HAS offline capabilities! See here: http://docs.google.com/offlinehelp?hl=en_US
Although they are not fully implemented -- stress BETA here -- they already fix one of the major fears of web apps: the web itself is down... well, not anymore!
Now, if only they would fix the PRIVACY (should I say confidence) problems... that would be nirvana :)
Don't forget that this is a forum full of geeks.
The vast majority of users would be better off with a simple text editor and a table manager.
I'd recommend Google docs for the following reasons:
- No worries about backup
- No client install required, no upgrades
- Documents available from anywhere. No need to set up VPN etc.
- Good collaboration and integration
Frankly, if you are considering the (very slow) open office, I would suggest an old version MS Office instead. It is much faster, everyone knows how to use it, simple deployment and same functionality. You might save a few sheckles on cost, but you will spend more money looking after it. And of course (in my expereince) it isn't that reliable.